(Original post by Newbie123)
I've done them before so I know how ya feel.

Read the big blue book once through, but don't hang on every little bit of advice they give you because most of its common sense.

If your maths is good by British standards, the "Math" section in the SAT should be a doddle.

Revise vocab from the internet or from vocab lists from amazon for the critical reading section.

Writing section is really just grammar stuff, and there's no way to truly revise for that kind of thing, just make sure you have the fundamentals down - e.g. singular/plural noun & verb agreement etc.

Thank you so much!, excellent advice, feel a bit more confident now

Tell me, see when you did the tests and the practice ones, did you ever find that you were looking for a complicated answer to questions which had a relatively easy one ? I keep finding on these sentence completion questions that I pick an answer which seems correct but think that because it's too easy it must be wrong so go to another one because it sounds complicated. Did you ever find this ?

Also, one other question, how is the timing of the day split out ? Do you literally sit down for 3 hours 45 minutes or do you get breaks etc ?

(Original post by S119234)
Thank you so much!, excellent advice, feel a bit more confident now

Tell me, see when you did the tests and the practice ones, did you ever find that you were looking for a complicated answer to questions which had a relatively easy one ? I keep finding on these sentence completion questions that I pick an answer which seems correct but think that because it's too easy it must be wrong so go to another one because it sounds complicated. Did you ever find this ?

Also, one other question, how is the timing of the day split out ? Do you literally sit down for 3 hours 45 minutes or do you get breaks etc ?

Yeah, some of the harder questions on the SAT will always seem like they have two potentially correct answers, in that case, you've just got to re-read the question and just try and understand what it's asking.

So for your example of a sentence completion question, I'd first cross out all the obviously wrong ones, which should leave you with 2 or, at max, 3 answers. From then you're just looking for something that makes it wrong, if you know what I mean. Also, they always want the "best" answer, by that they mean that although 2 answers COULD be correct, they want the one that's better, e.g. more concise, shorter, so for a sentence completion question, pick the answer that sounds like something a human being would say, I guess. Try and minimise the amount of times you second-guess yourself - that should come with familiarising yourself with the test.

The test itself has 10 sections of 10-25 minutes (but only 9 of them contribute to your score, as 1 of the sections is just an experimental one). You get like 3 breaks, to eat a snack, go to the toilet etc. so it gets split into chunks, you'll never do more than 2 or 3 sections at a time.

Word of advice, critical reading is probably the most difficult section, at least in my opinion.

I know exactly how you feel like, I got mines on the 8th of May so I've been revising loads but this is some of the advice that I've been told.

For the short passages on the critical reading you should quickly have a look at the questions first so you actually know what your looking for. Also at the top there might be a small introduction about the passage, READ THAT because that helps a lot. When your stuck between two answer ask yourself why this would be right.
On the sentence completions dont look at the choices straight away but put your own word in so you know what type of word your looking. Also you can tell a lot about a word by just saying it out loud, like if its positive or negative.
Make sure you know the structure on how to write the essay because its not really hard, you just have to know what to write for example, you should have 5 paragraphs, 3 detailed examples, use advanced vocab where you can that you do understand and make sure you use both pages.
Get a vocab list and a little notebook, and just write down random words you hear anywhere, and start reading newspaper like the economist and all the other stuff.
When it comes to grammar it just comes down to practice, and learning the rules that collegeboard tests you on, you can find these on sparknotes.com and also some really comprehensive iinformation on the critical reading parts of and good Flash Cards
Good luck and if all fails try the ACT
What colleges are you thinking about applying to ?

(Original post by Newbie123)
Yeah, some of the harder questions on the SAT will always seem like they have two potentially correct answers, in that case, you've just got to re-read the question and just try and understand what it's asking.

So for your example of a sentence completion question, I'd first cross out all the obviously wrong ones, which should leave you with 2 or, at max, 3 answers. From then you're just looking for something that makes it wrong, if you know what I mean. Also, they always want the "best" answer, by that they mean that although 2 answers COULD be correct, they want the one that's better, e.g. more concise, shorter, so for a sentence completion question, pick the answer that sounds like something a human being would say, I guess. Try and minimise the amount of times you second-guess yourself - that should come with familiarising yourself with the test.

The test itself has 10 sections of 10-25 minutes (but only 9 of them contribute to your score, as 1 of the sections is just an experimental one). You get like 3 breaks, to eat a snack, go to the toilet etc. so it gets split into chunks, you'll never do more than 2 or 3 sections at a time.

Word of advice, critical reading is probably the most difficult section, at least in my opinion.

Thanks so much once again. Most reassured to hear that that's the way the test runs, I had this impression that we sat down 3 hours 45 mins straight with no breaks, so phew

I know exactly how you feel like, I got mines on the 8th of May so I've been revising loads but this is some of the advice that I've been told.

For the short passages on the critical reading you should quickly have a look at the questions first so you actually know what your looking for. Also at the top there might be a small introduction about the passage, READ THAT because that helps a lot. When your stuck between two answer ask yourself why this would be right.
On the sentence completions dont look at the choices straight away but put your own word in so you know what type of word your looking. Also you can tell a lot about a word by just saying it out loud, like if its positive or negative.
Make sure you know the structure on how to write the essay because its not really hard, you just have to know what to write for example, you should have 5 paragraphs, 3 detailed examples, use advanced vocab where you can that you do understand and make sure you use both pages.
Get a vocab list and a little notebook, and just write down random words you hear anywhere, and start reading newspaper like the economist and all the other stuff.
When it comes to grammar it just comes down to practice, and learning the rules that collegeboard tests you on, you can find these on sparknotes.com and also some really comprehensive iinformation on the critical reading parts of and good Flash Cards
Good luck and if all fails try the ACT
What colleges are you thinking about applying to ?

Thank you man, much appreciated . I'm not too sure to be honest, figured I'd try the SAT and see how it went and then go onto look at some colleges (considering there is a whole summer holiday were I could focus at that), but I was looking at Ivy League, although it's probably a bit out of my depth . You got any idea which ones you'll apply to.

(Original post by S119234)
Thank you man, much appreciated . I'm not too sure to be honest, figured I'd try the SAT and see how it went and then go onto look at some colleges (considering there is a whole summer holiday were I could focus at that), but I was looking at Ivy League, although it's probably a bit out of my depth . You got any idea which ones you'll apply to.

Best of luck with the test aswell!

Yeahh thats a good idea, My first choice would be Stanford then Yale but they seem outta my league, Im also applying to Cornell, Dartmouth and Amherst because they are meant to be generous with financial aid and like minorities
But if your considering the ivies, you should apply to the US Sutton Trust Summer School, if you fit the eligibility list, its meant to be really good and informative anyways GOOD LUCK

LOL! By minorities, they don't mean international students/any one who is not White/Asian

Minorities are classed as under-represented groups within America; so African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, Native-Americans etc. Ergo, you'll need a US citizenship to be considered a minority to begin with; as the reason the College recruits more students from these groups in the first place is b/c it then receives extra federal funding. If you're an international student, your ethnicity doesn't matter, period.

(Original post by MirandaPanda)
LOL! By minorities, they don't mean international students/any one who is not White/Asian

Minorities are classed as under-represented groups within America; so African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, Native-Americans etc. Ergo, you'll need a US citizenship to be considered a minority to begin with; as the reason the College recruits more students from these groups in the first place is b/c it then receives extra federal funding. If you're an international student, your ethnicity doesn't matter, period.

Hmm, debatable (?)

You're saying if I was from Malawi or El Salvador, that wouldn't have *any* effect on how the admissions tutors perceive my application?

Places like HYP pride themselves on a diverse intake on an annual basis, and that includes representing a whole host of countries from pretty much every continent - so that would involve international students from slightly more obscure countries.

I'm sorry, but its really not. I go to a school that likely sends the most number of students from the UK to the US each year, and has done so for many years. We thus have admissions representatives from these universities come down for talks on a regular basis and inform us about the process etc.

(Original post by Newbie123)
You're saying if I was from Malawi or El Salvador, that wouldn't have *any* effect on how the admissions tutors perceive my application?

If you're from an under-represented country, then of course that helps your case - there was a great story a few weeks ago about a student who applied to the Ivy's from DRC (Congo), having spent his life living in a refugee camp and indeed without his parents. Truly remarkable.

But, this is a moot point here, as I assume the OP and yourself are from Western Europe, which certainly isn't an under-represented country/region (quite the opposite in fact) and thus certainly won't help you in the admissions process.

(Original post by MirandaPanda)I'm sorry, but its really not.
If you're from an under-represented country, then of course that helps your case - there was a great story a few weeks ago about a student who applied to the Ivy's from DRC (Congo), having spent his life living in a refugee camp and indeed without his parents. Truly remarkable.

But, this is a moot point here, as I assume the OP and yourself are from Western Europe, which certainly isn't an under-represented country/region (quite the opposite in fact) and thus certainly won't help you in the admissions process.

So... It IS debatable? If you're not from Western Europe.

And nah, I'm not from Western Europe, but I agree with you regarding European, particulary British, applicants not having any real advantage.

(Original post by S119234)
I booked my SAT test for the 2nd of June, and really need some advice on how to prepare effectively for it and what to expect.

I've got both the big blue study guide book and the Official online course that gives you practice tests etc, so I figured I'd work through them, but I'm not sure if it's effective or not ?

So, would anyone that has taken them before mind offering some advice on the best way to prepare for it and what to expect on the day ?, I'm feeling really uncertain about the whole thing!

The study guide is a good idea, because it really gives you a feel for how the collegeboard does things - which is half of the challenge of the SAT.

As for what you said about more complicated answers, I know exactly what you mean Keep in mind, especially in the writing section, that some number of the phrases are correct and should be left unchanged. Those always tripped me up for some reason- I guess I was looking too hard for an error